Oli Osorhan asked:


1. Answering Machine – This one is easy for offline marketing, just be sure to include your URL, dot.com in your answering machine messages!

2. Address Labels  – Again easy all your outgoing mail for everything use your address labels for more offline marketing of your business and website!

3. Business Cards – Definitely use them, get in the habit of carrying them with you and pass them out “It Works”, you can even get you cards done on cd-roms!

4. Company vehicles – We all see vehicles with company names and telephone numbers on them driving our streets and motorways. This is a great idea as it gives potential customers the chance while out and about to learn about the company and also learn about how to contact them should they need the service or product they offer at some stage in the future. I often wonder why more websites aren’t promoted in this way by simply adding the company website URL also, you definitely should do this as part of your Offline Marketing!

5.  Flyers – Post flyers on free local bulletin boards (grocery stores, discount chain stores, shopping malls, laundromats, dry cleaners, etc.) print a flyer on bright yellow paper detailing your web address and your company. BE SURE to include your email address, URL as well as your telephone number! Tack the flyer to bulletin boards all over your town. Keep a supply in your car for handy offline marketing!

6.  Freebies & Giveaways – This method is a personal favorite of mine. It involves purchasing and distributing items such as pencils, pens, t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, calendars, key-chains, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets and the like. All these items will have your URL, Logo, or Email address located somewhere on them helping to market offline and attract people to your website.

7.  Christmas Cards – Use your Christmas cards to all your customers also for offline marketing with all your info URL, email and phone numbers!

8.  Checks & Coupons – Again use all your information when using coupons and have your company checks printed with this information!

9. Web decals – are a new, inexpensive and fun way to use offline marketing and attract attention to your website. People absolutely love them, and they are very simple to use. Web decals are made of high quality vinyl and printed with state of the art digital equipment. Display your website address and more in bold white or black & white letters. People stick them everywhere. In your car windows, store, office and home windows, any place with glass!

10. Word of Mouth – easiest and a very viral form of offline marketing, your happy customers and friends just pass it on!

11. Fax cover sheets – (many people forget this one for offline marketing!)

12. Personal brochures – about you and your company!

13. Printed Material – Print your URL (Web site address) everywhere you print your business name. Including business cards, fliers, signage, ads, product tags, labels, craft show directories (in shows you may be attending) and anywhere else your business name is printed!

14. Newspapers, classifieds and related magazines – The print media which includes newspapers, journals and magazines is another avenue where your can have your URL exposed for everyone to see. It’s best first to start advertising your products, services and URL in local newspapers and then if successful continue onto regional and national publications. If you can’t afford the common graphical advertisement as seen throughout newspapers and journals related to your industry don’t worry as most of these publications have classified ad sections. Classified ads allow you to reach a targeted audience very cheaply with a simple short message and of course your URL is included in there somewhere too again a great source of offline marketing for your business!

15. Press releases – Press releases using them for offline marketing and promotion. Press releases or news releases as they’re sometimes known are newsworthy stories about your business that you send to various sections of the media. These sections of the media must be related to your industry for you to have any chance of success. Newsworthy stories are stories which readers of the media publications you submit to might be interested in.

If the journalist reads it and likes it he or she may publish it or some of its contents in his or her publication, if this happens you’re on to a winner because the public in general are much more responsive to a news story than a plain old hyped up advertisement. This could mean they’ll enquire about or even purchase your products or services.

Using press releases for offline marketing of your website uses the same principals, if it’s newsworthy release it. Newsworthy events for websites include website launches, website re launches and new online services among other items. Also don’t forget online press releases!

16. I. ID-It Plates – These Elegant mini-Billboards promote YOU 365 days a year, enhance the appearance of your vehicles, last for years and most important, give you literally Millions of Impressions  and affordable offline marketing over their lifetime.

Conclusion – Even if your business only exits in the virtual world you must realize ALL your customers live and always will live in the physical world and therefore can be reached much better from the physical world. The moral of the story is never ever forget about the offline marketing and promotion of your website. Your success or failure could depend on it!

http:www.moneybizhome.com/marketing_articles

 

Lee Roper asked:


So you’re out of town visiting a new city, and you go online to search for the hottest nightclub in the city. You finally think you have found it. The website is absolutely amazing. Lots of lights, a modern spin on the site, images of people crammed onto a dance floor, and even a limo outside the front door. Your write down the address, hop in the taxi and pull up to a hole in the wall when the driver tells you “That’ll be twelve bucks.” There is one small bar, the hanging neon sign is about to give out, and you can count the number of occupants on one hand.

This is an extreme example, but the last thing you want your online marketing to do is paint inconsistent picture from your offline marketing. Consistent marketing doesn’t mean that the colour on the walls is the same as the website background, and the logo on the front door is the same that’s at the top of the web page. If you want a high-end upscale site, then reflect the same offline. If you can’t quite get your offline location to match your amazing new flashy site, then tone down the e-marketing just a bit.

The first step in creating a consistent e-marketing presence is to know your industry. You don’t want your online presence to reflect that you don’t even know your own industry. Chances are, the feel of a nursing home site, is going to differ greatly from the new trendy lofts that just went up downtown. If you business caters to families, don’t design your online present to target individuals 18-24. Keep in mind that consumers already have their own idea of what image your industry should convey. You don’t want to veer too far off of that path unless you are prepared to take a huge change with your marketing strategy.

A great way measure your online marketing accuracy is by knowing your competition. Research the web presence that your competitors have already created. How is it working out for them? You may also want to look at competitors in other parts of the country. Look at main stream competitors as well as those in your class. How does their web presence differ? While you never want to create a site that looks identical or too close to a competitor the information that you gather from numerous competitors can be combined to create a top of the line, consistent marketing presence, both online and hopefully offline.

Also remember that online marketing can also be applied to search engine marketing (SEM). You want your site to be visible through the proper searches. Spending a lot of time and money on search engine marketing is only a waste if your site isn’t coming up with searches consistent to your industry. SEM can also be researched by searching for other businesses within your industry.

Make sure that when you’re combining your online and offline presence that you do stand out from the crowd. Chances are there is a sea of businesses within your industry with both a strong online and offline presence. But also make sure that when designing your site, you do not alienate yourself for being “too far out there”.

Online Marketing Guru asked:


There’s a lot of money in affiliate marketing. This is true, however, only to those are seriously and zealously working on his affiliate program. Success in affiliate marketing varies in every individual affiliate and for the most part, it depends on his will and perseverance. No matter how good an affiliate program is, it will not prosper if the affiliate marketer does not pay the price of hard work. One must exert extra effort especially on the aspect of promotion. Nothing will happen if the links or banners would just lie idle in a web page, an affiliate must be able to convince the visitor to click it and proceed to the business site to buy the products. No click-throughs means no income for an affiliate marketer.

You can actually generate a full-time income by means of affiliate marketing and you can do it at home, and yes, even while you sleep. You must have a good web site to begin with. It must have good promotional and informative contents, pleasing design, inviting banner ads and all other important elements in an affiliate marketer’s web site. It would be great if you have exhausted other means of advertising such as newsletters, email marketing, message boards and ad listings such as Google AdWords. You just have to go online once in a while to check your site and update it and to watch over the development of your marketing program. Does this sound so easy?

It can be this easy if you have planned your affiliate program well and have taken all the steps towards success carefully and diligently. Now, there’s a tool you can use to help you go through the program with ease and confidence, the Ad Tracker. For many experienced and successful affiliate marketers, the Ad Tracker is a key to a successful affiliate marketing program.

What precisely is an ad tracker? It is a marketing tracking software or program that allows you to trace and take note of every click-through made by visitors of your site and by other customers who got your referral link. There are ad tracking service providers as well, so you will just have to pay them to do the tracking for you. With the ad tracker, you can keep an eye on the progress of your marketing campaigns even offline. This tool or program is especially helpful if you are engaged in several affiliate and pay-per-click programs and have placed ads in emails, pop-ups and pop-unders, message boards, auto responders, Ezines, forums, several web sites, surveys and various ad service providers.

Of course, you don’t want all your efforts to be put to waste so you want to make sure you are getting paid for your hard work. Likewise, you want to make sure every dollar or cent you disburse in your advertising campaigns is wisely spent. With the help of the ad tracker, you will know accurately how many and which of your links where clicked on, how many clicked on your links, how many of your emails were opened and how many of those who opened your email clicked through the business site and purchased a product, how many products were purchased, which of your banner ads or links brought the most leads and sales and many other pertinent facts and figures you need.

Sales records and all data stated are necessary in any business as this could determine if your affiliate program is still worth continuing. This would also help you determine which of your marketing strategies is most effective and which is most beneficial for each product or service you are promoting.

Every decision and plan you make must be well grounded on facts. That decision or plan of action may not be the best, but it is something not to regret about when you had valid reasons for coming up with such decision or plan. You cannot just decide to terminate your affiliate program, just because you don’t earn big in an instant.

If you are serious with affiliate marketing, again and again, keep in mind that your success lies mainly on promotion and your hard work. If you don’t seem lucky enough to convince many of your site users to buy the products, don’t be disheartened and jump into a conclusion that your affiliate program is a failure. If it works for others, it could work for you, too. Know whether your advertising techniques are effective or not, which works best for your program and which doesn’t. Get an ad tracker to help you know all these and you’d surely be on the right track towards success!

Brynn A asked:


Many industrial and B2B companies are taking steps to add or enhance online marketing. Online marketing encompasses search engine optimization, article marketing, blogging and other Internet activity. As companies branch into the digital marketing world, it is key to evaluate current marketing initiatives and ensure that they blend with any new online marketing tactics. In fact, some online and offline marketing can work together for an added boost.

To align your marketing efforts, it is important that they follow a similar path and message. Your online marketing campaign is now as important, if not more important than your offline marketing. So, the message you send online should be planned and considered as thoroughly as the campaigns you already have in effect.

To make your digital promotion correspond well to your traditional marketing, you should ask a few questions:

1. What is your message? What are you promising? Is your website offering the answer to your message, does it guarantee to fulfill your promise?

2. Do your traditional marketing pieces have your web address place prominently on them?

3. Do both your online marketing & traditional marketing efforts provide a number, email or different ways to create action and convert customers?

To understand the importance of aligning marketing campaigns, realize that a potential client will always look to gain more knowledge before purchasing. After promotion of any type is seen, a client will do further research, if the advertisement captured their attention. One of the best ways to catch consumers is to educate them during their research stage. Providing a web address within offline marketing materials like business cards, sales books and trade show booths helps to further the “conversation” from paper to computer. Providing a web address is a powerful marketing tool, as it is not overly aggressive, yet provides you with another opportunity to catch their information like name, number and email address.

So, as you begin to flow your customers from your offline marketing to your industrial online marketing landing space, create your website to be a one stop information shop about your company, the products or services you provide, what you have given to the community and what others have to say about you. You can help a potential client have a positive impression before they even pick up the telephone or submit an online inquiry.

Every so often it is important to step back and think about how you proceed as a consumer. What actions do you take? What information are you looking for? Ask those in your company those questions and brainstorm about your ideal consumer’s buying process. It will likely include offline and online marketing channels, and a migration between the two. That is why it is important to have online and offline marketing emphasize the same message, and to have the two channels complement one another. You will be pleased with how powerful your marketing can be as the leads increase.

William King asked:


One of the most critical aspects of running a business is marketing. It encompasses every customer related task from creating awareness to customer satisfaction and retention. One may go as far as to say that a business cannot survive or even start up without it. In the current scenario, marketing has become a complex and sophisticated function, especially now that an increasing number of businesses choose to start up online. Now, along with the traditional offline marketing tools, there are a number of web marketing tools and methods available. These web marketing methods must be mastered for any level of success in online business.

The differences that separate web marketing from offline marketing are as below:

• Snail mail vs. email – Email marketing is low cost, efficient, instant and effective means of generating customers. Snail mail is slow, generally more expensive and is losing some of its efficacy with the influx of TV and Internet.

• Limited radius of impact vs. unlimited – The target audience is global in the case of web marketing with the Internet shrinking the world. The radius of offline marketing is limited by physical, political and time barriers.

• Web customers are looking for a product or service similar to yours – The beauty of being an online business is that people log on to look for a service or product that you can offer. Whereas, offline businesses have to rely more on push marketing than the pull effect.

• Long, complex process of making a sale vs. instant conversion – A few clicks of a mouse and the product is sold, in the case of web marketing. Offline marketing process is time and manpower heavy, from generating leads to making a sale.

• Fixed office hours vs. 24 hour store – An online business can sell its products 24 hours a day while an offline business will open and shut at particular hours.

• Advertising in print, TV and radio is expensive – While you can easily offer content, audio and video clips on the Internet for a very low cost.

• Pay for time spots vs. unlimited time and space – Ads in offline marketing mediums are for a limited time only and you pay for time slots and space. In an online marketing scenario, you would keep your ads up for a longer time and pay much less.

• Cost per incremental customer – This cost is very low for web marketing based concerns, whereas this cost is appreciable in case of offline marketing efforts.

• Targeted approach vs. blanket approach – The above reason leads offline marketing businesses to target and select carefully, eliminating a lot of potential customers, who may buy in the future if not the present. However, low incremental costs result in online businesses covering a broad spectrum of the market.

• Segmentation – Preferences are much easier to track for an online business and this means that segmentation is simpler. The web marketing effort has the information it needs to customize its pitch at once.

• Customer contact – Access to customer information is automatic in the case of online businesses and the web marketing process is simplified and made efficient. Databases and mailing lists are created in an instant. On the contrary, offline marketing efforts for the same require time, employees and money.

There are many benefits to both web marketing and offline marketing, and it is best to use a judicious mix of the two.

temp_168807 asked:

If you own and operate an online business, it would be quite myopic to exclusively focus on online marketing methods to promote your enterprise.  Granted that the World Wide Web is home to some amazing and cost-effective ways that can help spread the word about your business, the World Wide Web remains as just one avenue for you to exploit.  There is a more promising avenue that has been neglected since the advent of the internet.

 

This is the offline market.

 

Below are 5 simple but highly effective offline marketing methods that you can implement for your online business.

 

Distributing items that prominently display your URL.  Coffee mugs, caps, shirts, and even bumper stickers.  Surely, you’ve seen such items that displayed a particular URL, right?  Can you remember how intrigued you were when you encountered them?  Perhaps you may still remember the URL you saw back then?  Such is the power of this method.

 

Distributing media kits for the press people.  Press people are always on the lookout for things to write about.  Make things easy for them by distributing press kits that consist of: an expertly written press release about your company or about an event that affects your company, a profile of your business, a list of prominent clients/customers, a list of awards received, your complete product line, and other similar details.

 

Conducting seminars, symposiums and workshops.  What better way to promote your website – something that is often viewed with the negativity caused by the prevalent anonymity on the internet – than by providing the public with the face of your business: yours.  By making yourself visible and displaying your expertise in events that call for the same, such as seminars, symposiums and workshops related to the field you are concentrating on, you’ll be able to build your name in the industry, and consequently, you will be able to build the brand of your business.

 

Advertise in your dailies and magazines.  Yes, it will cost some money, but advertising on print publications is not as expensive as it may initially seem to most folks.  You don’t need full page ads or double-paged spreads.  You won’t even need a quarter of a page.  You will need an eighth of a page at the most.  Based on experience, the best type of print ad that you can run is a simple display of your website’s URL.  Imagine white font on black background and you’ll see how such an ad will stand out.  Because of the dearth in details, people will be intrigued and they will log online to check out your site to see what it’s about.

 

Sponsor charity events.  Most of these events will prominently display their sponsors’ logos on the advertising materials they will use.  Instead of your business’ logo, ask that your website’s URL be displayed instead.  The exposure your link will receive via this method can potentially be immense.  Imagine a charitable event on a national, if not a global, scale, and you will begin to imagine the sheer potency of this technique in action.

Ronda Tuckness asked:

If you are wondering whether to go with offline marketing or online marketing, the answer is up to you. I would venture to say that many network marketers use a little of each. Both methods can bring promising prospects your way.

Let’s take a look at some of the offline methods first. Leaving business cards, catalogs and brochures at places you frequent; placing a web decal or magnetic sign on your vehicle; newspaper ads; flyers; business stationary; free product samples; wearing apparel that features your company logo; home parties; craft fairs; flea markets; door hangers; postcards.

Online methods can include article marketing; forum participation; online ads; social networking; pay-per-clicks; Google adwords; blogs; purchasing leads; etc.

Each and every method is not listed here, but you get the idea. I believe that every method which gets your business website out there is beneficial. Network marketers will favor some methods over others, but it essentially comes down to you.

You will learn which methods you prefer after a little trial and error. There are a few that I simply detest only because they do not suit my personality. It is important to use the methods that you enjoy and are comfortable with.

If you force yourself to use methods that you don’t like because you think you should or because someone advised you to, that will be a mistake. You will **** every minute of it, and your disdain could cause you to leave your network marketing dream behind.

Your business belongs to you. You should seek advice and counsel from the gurus, but only use what interests you. Any method that gets your name and company to the masses in a positive way is a useful promotion tactic.

Offline marketing or online does not have to be a choice. You can easily use both for favorable results. Some people use online methods exclusively and have no desire to try anything offline. That is certainly their prerogative. However, something as simple as a web decal on their vehicle is seen daily by dozens of people.

Why not employ both methods for maximum effect? I admit that I do not use many offline methods because I truly prefer working online. However, I would not discount anything that appealed to me just because I prefer working online.

The more people that are exposed to your website or your business, the faster things will go. It is all about numbers, or as some would say, “It is a numbers game.” I do get tired of that cliché, but it is true.

So, the bottom line is, “offline or online”, it is all good. Any method that suits your style, used consistently, will produce results.